Once again, thank you for answering the call

On Father’s Day, I couldn’t help but think about my dad’s service in the volunteer fire department for many years. Many fathers and mothers, paid and volunteer, have always made sacrafices for us, sometimes in spite of their own predicaments.

Cetrainly, though I know it is not an adequate response, our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost so much in this recent tragedy.

All the time I was growing up in a small town in southwestern Colorado, a strange, faceless phone with no dialing mechanism hung right on my dad’s side of my parent’s bedroom. I think there might have been as many as eight of them (exactly alike) hanging in various locations (homes and businesses) around the small town of 800 residents.

All of them were the property of the local volunteer fire department.

Whether it be night or day, the loud, unremitting, urgent ring would sound continuously at the breakout of a fire -- until someone picked up and answered the call.

If the call was judged not to be a prank, or false alarm, then the lever on the black box next to the phone was shoved over, all the way to the right, and the fire siren down at the town hall would begin its mournful summons of the 25 or 30 volunteer firefighters in the area.

Later, of course, heavy, boxlike pagers were worn on volunteers’ belts and the siren (that also served as the noon whistle, because it was necessary to test each day), became obsolete. I am not sure what they use today in that town.

The volunteers serving on that department – all by choice – and all continuing to work their regular jobs or at businesses to pay the bills and feed their families, would drop everything when the siren wailed.

I considered that carefully again this week, as we continued to evaluate how fortunate we are, and what a debt we owe, regarding firefighter’s response and effectiveness when called to serve. When everyone else is running out, they are unselfishly, and usually anonymously, running in.

As Fred Rogers noted, “Look for the helpers.”

Of course, this week we are lining the roads, making signs and remembering (quite correctly so,) to mark the firefighters recent efforts.